Irrigation in a changing climateSave water, save money

– improve your irrigation scheduling

Peter White Water Management

Cloverlea,Nuttery Lane,Aldringham

Leiston IP16 4QWUK

‘phone 07785 393925Office ‘phone and fax 01728 454 839

Email: PeterWhiteWater@irrigationworld2000.comwww.irrigationworld2000.com

How do you decide when to irrigate?

Kick the dust? – can we afford to UNDER or OVER-water,

- Do you know how much your irrigation application costs are?- Do you know how much poor irrigation is costing you in terms of yield and quality? Probably a lot more than you think!

ET based computer model? – how do you know what your starting moisture is? Some potatoes sites can have a massive moisture deficit post-planting

Continuous monitoring Probe?-The 21st century method-build up a detailed picture of exactly what is happening in your soil

The spade? - essential in managing irrigation scheduling

Peter White Water Management

Cloverlea,Nuttery Lane,Aldringham

Leiston IP16 4QWUK

‘phone 07785 393925Office ‘phone and fax 01728 454 839

Email: PeterWhiteWater@irrigationworld2000.comwww.irrigationworld2000.com

Leading the way in soil and substrate moisture monitoring solutions, interpretation

and advice for more than 15 years.

The technology What happens...

The smart probe is inserted into an installation tube drilled through the soil profile. Sensors are located at 10cm intervals which take a readingof the surrounding soil moisture every30 minutes.

The data is recorded and uploaded to the internet it can then be viewed by the grower as a tool to better managetheir irrigation.

The system displays both changes in soil moisture at each depth and a summed graph of the moisture available to the crop Benefits...

*Prevent crop water stress from under or over watering

*Reduced nutrient leaching

*Reduced disease pressure,

*Better root development

*Better utilisation of water supplies,

Improved quality and yield = Increased profits

View On your PC

View on your phone

Web Server

Our consultancy input

Data Collection

GPRS

So what can we learn from the soil moisture

data collected?

Salad onions – A graph of readings for each depth over time

Irrigation/rainfall event

Soil drying as the crop takes up water

Salad onions Top 30cm Summed – available water in the active root zone

Excess water draining out of the active root zone

Water available to the crop

Salad onions Separate Depths

Rainfall passing through at 50cm leaching nutrients outof root zone

Salad onions Top 30cm Summed

Red line is suggested optimum moisture application schedule for most situations.

Certain soils with hydrophobic properties should not be dried to far or they become difficult to re-wet

Refill the rooting zone, not just wet the top soil, give all the roots access to water and nutrients

Salad onions Top 30cm Summed

? ?

How close to field capacity do we want to refill the soil to?

Depends on soil type, crop stage and weather forecast Every situation is different

More data... Good irrigation Potatoes on light land Separate Depths

Water uptake at 50cm

Moisture stressed

Over irrigation

6 days

8mm/day

More data... Good irrigation Potatoes on light land Summed

And the result of good water management in this crop?

32T/Ac by August

This graph shows the sum of the 3 sensors in bagged strawberries. When daily irrigation was turned off....

See how water demand increases as soil is allowed to partially dry

Optimum conditions for healthy roots

Where ET models fail...

When is 30mm irrigation not 30mm irrigation?

Our probes monitor moisture where it matters – the crop root zone

“your probes are not working, we put on 30mm of water from a boom and your probes have not picked it up”

A couple of potato growers have called us this year....

Water lying in the furrow

Looked like a generous irrigation from the roadside

We know our sensors are accurate and reliable so what was

happening?

Cross section of potato ridge immediately after irrigation

Time to put the spade to work....

ET model would assume you had refilled the ridge, yet you can see only the top few cm had wetted up, most of the irrigation had run off into ridge

Infiltration rate of the extremely dry ridge too slow to take in 30mm boom irrigation in one application

Saturated furrow, probably leaching nutrients but no roots here at this stage of the crop

Does it matter ?

at this stage YES – none of the irrigation reached the roots of these young plants

The ridge – bone dry, crop is drought stressed, restricting growth and what about moisture for scab control on young tubers??

The solutions

Not easy, but if you do not know you have a problem you can not address it.

Apply little and often, each application will penetrate a little further into the ridge providing you do not let the previous irrigation dry out

Move to drip?

Does this happen on your land too?

Another ET example....Similiar ET Figures

Very different actual water uptake

Cost effective tools to help you make informed

decisions about your irrigation

Provides evidence of appropriate efficient water use when applying for abstraction licences

Improve yield, increase quality, better utilise water, labour and fuel

Contact us to arrange a trial system for 2010

Want to know more?

Like to try a system in your crops?

PeterWhite,Cloverlea,

Nuttery Lane,Aldringham

Leiston IP16 4QWUK

‘phone 07785 393925Office ‘phone and fax 01728 454 839

Email: PeterWhiteWater@irrigationworld2000.com

www.irrigationworld2000.com

Jonathan Munslow,Rowley Farm

HarleyShropshire, SY5 6LX

UK‘phone 07977 299 113

j1munslow@hotmail.com